A Stranger's Turn of Events
by Indoctrinated
Summary: What might have been was all she had left, all she dreamed about, all she thought about, all she wished for, all she wanted. Implied TenRose.


A/N: My WIP is officially on hold. It's being a pain and I'm officially fed up with it. Maybe I'll peek at it again in a few days. For now, I'm going back to writing one-shots. Here's another for you guys. Hope it makes you smile 'cause I know I did when I was writing it! (The last third of it anyway, the beginning is kind of dark.)

A/N 2: I keep forgetting to put these things on my stories. I don't own Doctor Who, I definitely don't own David Tennant (cries in despair), but I do own James Redding. He's mine, you can't have him. You are, however, welcome to borrow him on a limited basis as long as you bring him back in pristine condition and with all pieces intact. Other than that hands off and please don't breathe on the glass. Keep off the grass as well. **End Disclaimer**

* * *

Rose never remembered why she let Mickey talk her into going to the pub that night. What she did recall, before donning a coat and grabbing her purse, was staring out the window in her room. She counted the snowflakes that drifted past the frosted glass, and dreamt of what might have been. The planets she would never see, the people she would never meet, and the adventures she would never have. Rose Tyler lived two half-lives, one based in firm reality, the other in the limitless land of her imagination.

Perhaps it was this knowledge that encouraged Mickey to take her out drinking, to force Rose into such a reality that couldn't be denied nor dissolve as easily as the four walls of her room. Rose would never know, but whatever the reason, she was thankful.

And so on a bleak, cold January night, Rose Tyler found herself seated at the bar and staring into the infinite depths of a glass of whiskey as if its amber contents held the answers to the meaning of life. _The meaning to life is 42_, a familiar cheery voice suggested, and Rose snorted. She'd never forgive the Doctor for forcing her to read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Well, forced wasn't the exact word for it. Tricked was a more apt description. He told her that the book was a lot like what she might expect to see around the universe. She'd get him back someday, somehow.

It was only then she realized that, in fact, no, she would never get her revenge on him. And not only that, she'd never see him again. Right on cue, Rose felt a stinging sensation at the corners of her eyes. The frigid wind of a winter storm howled shrilly outside, scouring the London streets in an shower of ice and snow that would put an arctic gale to shame, but even its icy bite couldn't compare with the coldness Rose felt in her heart. She sniffed once, sneezed into a bar napkin, and threw back the rest of her whiskey. It did nothing to warm her. Intent on finding Mickey, who was a few seats down the bar throwing out all the stops for a saucy red-head who he had claimed was giving him the eye from the moment he walked in, Rose began to gather her things to tell him that she was going back home.

Just then a man, roughly about the height of the Doctor though slightly better built, settled so quietly into the seat next to Rose that she didn't notice until he ordered from the bartender. Not a single man had dared to approach her all night, as if they could feel the coldness of her heart simply by coming near her. And so she was shocked when she glanced up to see what this silent man looked like, and was greeted with a warm smile. It wasn't a restrained smile like most people give when they meet for the first time. This man grinned at her like he had known her for his entire life, like he knew how she took her tea, and what her favorite color was, and that she sang very off-key versions of showtunes when she was in the shower and no one else was home.

The exchange took only a moment, but Rose felt as if he had taken a brief look into her soul. He turned back to receive his drink from the barkeep and took a slow, savoring swallow of it. She returned to gathering her coat and purse, wondering why she had been so affected by one glance from a stranger. Next to her, the man kept to himself despite the odd event that had just occurred. Did that mean he did that to every person he met? Rose really didn't care. All she cared about was getting home to the safety of her room where she could dream about her life with the Doctor in private.

Just as she turned to hop down from the barstool, she felt a gentle hand on her shoulder. She froze, only for a second, because she knew it could only belong to one person. Then a voice, a low pleasant rumble that soothed frayed nerves in ways that hadn't been soothed in a very long time, asked, "Would it be alright if I bought you another round?"

She turned back to look at him. He had kind eyes, ones that Rose felt like she could look into forever and never notice the passing of time. They inevitably reminded her of the Doctor's. But there was something else in his face, an honesty that just isn't common anymore, an odd combination of tranquility and hardness that seemed to say that he could be hurt but wouldn't let it get to him. Rose wished she knew how he could get wounded that badly and still have hope. Maybe it was a combination of all these things, maybe it was just because she was lonely, whatever the reason, she replied, "Sure, why not?"

The man smiled that same smile again, and signaled to the bartender for another round. Rose slumped back into her seat, shocked at her reply and wondering what had come over her. Why had she agreed? She shook her head in disbelief.

The man spoke again, this time without looking at her, anywhere but her. "I needed someone to talk to tonight, and it looked like you did too."

The first reply that came to mind, and danced on the tip of Rose's, was that no, she was alright, and thank you very much for the drink, although she really didn't need it and she was here with a friend anyway. But then she realized that most of the reply was a lie. She had wanted to say yes, she wasn't all right, and she definitely needed it. So, instead, she smiled and said, "You're right, I do. Thanks."

They were silent until the drinks came, murmured their thanks to the barkeeper, and fell silent again as they sipped. They remained quiet until the drinks were nearly gone, when the stranger finally seemed to pluck up enough courage to ask, "So, who was he? This man that you lost."

Rose was so surprised that she nearly snorted her mouthful of whiskey back into the glass. She sputtered, swallowed, and then swung to face him, eyes wide in disbelief. "How do you know that I lost someone?"

He shrugged, gazing into his glass with an single-minded intensity not too unlike what Rose had been doing only a few minutes ago. "Sorry if I startled you. It's just that I recently lost my wife, and you looked about as miserable as I was a few days ago."

"I'm sorry," Rose replied with sincere sympathy, neither of them looking each other in the eye. Her gaze was drawn to his left hand, and, sure enough, a band of gold still gleamed on his ring finger. Feeling compelled to share, she added, "I lost the one man I loved the most. Probably the only man I would have ever married if given half the chance. It ended before it ever began." She laughed softly, bitterly.

The man tossed her a sideways glance. "How'd you lose him? If you don't mind me nosing in."

"His…occupation…caused us to split up. His life went one way, mine went another. Some people call it fate, I call it rotten luck." She swallowed the last of her drink.

The stranger scowled. "What job was so important?"

She sighed heavily. "He was a doctor, he traveled a lot. It's complicated." She swiveled in the stool to face him. "Now it's my turn to nose in."

He gulped another swallow, and replied, "Cancer."

Rose knew there were no words to comfort him, so she stayed silent.

"It was brain cancer." He said it as simply as before, all emotion either forced or drained out of his voice. "In the beginning, it was still so hopeful that she might make it out ok. More and more survivors are beating it everyday, they claimed. She was happy. The doctors tried to remove the tumors. They grew back. But then it just kept growing, spreading. The lungs and liver were the next to fall. By then they had decided it was too late to remove all the tumors. Nothing they could really do. In the end all they could do was make her comfortable, give her enough morphine to make the passage easier. She died holding my hand, and me telling her I loved her. At least I hope those are the last words she remembers from me. Maybe then she'll wait more patiently for me to join her." He smiled ruefully and tossed back the rest of his drink. "Never thought I'd be so eager to die."

Rose took a moment to gather her thoughts as she suddenly found herself on the verge of tears. She spoke after a beat, "I know sorry doesn't even begin to cover it, but I don't know what else to say."

"From what I can tell," he began, the flatness now leaving his voice, "you never even had a chance with this man that you loved. You never got to tell him that you loved him, and you never got to hear it back. At the very least I had that. I can remember the wonderful things I did with my wife, but you can only dream of what might have been."

Those last few words hit Rose like a freight train. _What might have been._ What might have been was all she had left, all she dreamed about, all she thought about, all she wished for, all she wanted.

A moment later, now having given up with his pursuit, Mickey ambled up and clapped Rose on the shoulder. He slurred heavily in a completely drunken stupor, "Oi, where've ya been? I've been tryin'a snag a foxy lil red-headed vixen. S'quite hard." His head craned around, and for the first time he noticed the stranger Rose had been talking to. "Ya wanna intraduce me ta yer new frien'?"

She quickly realized, that for all they had shared in the past half an hour, neither of them knew one another's name. Rose felt as if she had known this man her entire life, and yet she still didn't know who he really was. "Um, he's….ah…"

The stranger flashed a grin, stuck out his hand to Mickey, and replied, "James Redding, but people call me Red more than anything else."

Mickey fumbled for his hand, shook it, and asked in confusion, his brow deeply furrowed, "Why d'they call ya that?"

Redding raised his eyebrows at Rose as if in disbelief. She laughed and hooked a hand into Mickey's elbow to steer him with. She apologized, "I'm sorry, Mr. Redding, but my friend here is horrible plastered. I better get him home." As an after thought, she tagged onto that, "I'm Rose Tyler."

He gave her the same grin he had when they first met, and Rose realized that she liked his smile. It was familiar, like the Doctor's. He handed her a bar napkin with some writing on it and added over the din of the bar that grew louder as they were pushed apart by a new wave of thirsty customers, "Call me anytime if you need to talk, Mrs. Tyler. Oh, and don't call me Mr. Redding. It's Red to you!"

He heard her laugh clearly over the boisterous cheers and drunken shouts, as well as her reply of, "Only if you call me Rose!"

James Redding grinned again, signaled to the bartender for a refill, and toasted a new friend, "Good luck, Rose Tyler. There's hope in the world yet." He left the bar that night a different man then when he had entered.

* * *

James Redding walked home, his footprints punching holes in the thick blanket of white snow, while his mind, oddly sober and unclouded for the amount of alcohol he had consumed, wandered far. He thought about his wife and how happy she must be now, happier than she had ever been on Earth. It made him glow inside to know that he'd see her again one day. That brief comment he had made in the bar to Rose Tyler flew to the forefront of his mind. _"Never thought I'd be so eager to die."_ A simple conversation with a stranger had changed all that.

He was selfish for wanting to satisfy his own needs when the woman he loved would never have the chances he still could. He needed to live a life she would be proud of, so that when he finally did she her, she would gladly take his hand and claim him as her husband once more.

In his musings, James Redding trudged past an alleyway with a blue police box near the entrance; a place where a phone booth had no place being. Not only was it out of place, no snow dusted the top of the structure like it should have during a winter snowstorm either. It was as if it had just been placed there. He probably would have never noticed this had a man not barreled out of the alleyway at the exact moment he passed in front of it, and sent them both sprawling into a bank of snow.

Quick as a flash, the man exploded onto his feet, hauled James up by the lapels of his overcoat and held him there, demanding, "What year is it?"

Redding stood stock still, shocked and bewildered. The man shook him again, snow dusting the man's deep brown hair and gathering on the shoulders of his pinstriped suit coat. "What year is it, man? What day? Answer! Do you speak in any way, shape, or form?"

Redding shook his head, and replied haltingly, "Ah, 2007. It's January 28th, 2007."

"Eh, close enough." The man started to turn away, back towards the main street. He paused mid-step, and swung back to James, an odd look on his face. He asked, "You wouldn't happen to know a Rose Tyler, now would you?"

James blanched. What the hell was going on here? A man comes out of nowhere, shoves him into a pile of snow, demands to know what the date is, and then asks if he knows a person he only met an hour ago. He put out a hand to steady himself against a wall, and rubbed his eyes furiously with the other. When he looked up, the man was still standing there, hands shoved into his pockets and seemingly unaffected by the cold. It couldn't have been more than 10 degrees outside and yet he was dressed in only a pinstripe suit – a scruffy and well-used one at that - but James couldn't detect a shiver or shudder that showed that the cold bother him. Convinced that he was either crazy or having a drunken hallucination, he replied, "Yes, I know a Rose Tyler."

The man seemed to explode with questions, like all this energy was bottled up inside him and his only release was through words. "Where does she live? Do you have a number? Does she still live with Jackie and Pete? Does she live with Mickey? Ick, bad thought. Where is she now? Is she at home or work? Where does she work?"

James held up a hand for silence, and he saw the stranger have to almost physically force his mouth shut. "I don't know where she lives, I don't know where she works, I don't who she lives with. I don't know who Mickey, Jackie, or Pete are."

"But, then how ca-"

James made a hushing motion. The man promptly silenced himself again.

"I met her little more than an hour ago. I know two things about her. Her name is Rose Tyler, and that she was in love with a man she lost." James saw a strange fire leap into the man's eyes. The energy that fueled him only moments ago seemed to flow away, but now gave way to an intense flame that burned bright in the his dark eyes. "I'm only guessing, and I might be wrong, but you're the man she lost."

The man nodded, and grinned. "We lost each other. But none of that matters now."

James replied with a grin to match the stranger's. "Do me a favor then. Tell her you love her. Make that the first thing you say. Don't say hello, don't dawdle. Tell her you love her, because that's what she needs to hear more than anything else."

"I will," he replied, and James found himself trusting the words of a man he met no more than five minutes ago. Maybe it was that fire in his eyes that was familiar and he felt he could trust. Tonight was all about meeting strangers, James mused. "Thank you…" the stranger trailed off, realizing he had no name to put to this particular face.

James introduced himself to another stranger for the second time that night. "James Redding, but people call me Red more than anything else."

The stranger shook his hand, and replied, "I'm the Doctor."

"Of what?"

The Doctor winked, and said simply, mysteriously, cryptically, "Many things." The he spun on a heel and trudged down the snowy London street, a grin plastered on his face and a fire in his eyes. James Redding never saw Rose Tyler or the Doctor ever again, at least not in this world, but maybe he would in the next.

Fin.


End file.
